Your Tax Dollars at Work

Announcements about major changes in Haven & Hearth.

Your Tax Dollars at Work

Postby jorb » Fri Jul 30, 2010 1:16 pm

Greetings!

Since there was some discussion in the cut-throat thread on what we're actually doing with all the cash you send us, I thought I'd do a little update post on the present status of the economy. Since the primary currency of our account is SEK (Swedish krona) I will give figures using that currency. I'm sure you can find exchange rates yourself, but this morning a cursory inspection reveals (Forex) that a US dollar is worth somewhere between 6.86 (buying) and 7.5 (selling) kronor.

The present balance(s) on our donations account is: 7 006.67 SEK.

Our expenses thus far (since we started accepting donations) are:

One new server motherboard
2 x 2 new sticks of RAM for the server
------------------
- 2340 SEK

One new UPS battery
------------------
-€49.10 EUR ~= -490 SEK

Donations have ranged from 0.99 US cents (smallest) to $200 (largest single cash donation).

The money you have been kind enough to donate has been spent solely on those hardware upgrades, and our basic philosophy is that that is what we will use donated money for.

So why is the game still lagging?

As has been stated before the issue that we have to solve right now is the bandwidth issue. I currently run the game, account and web servers from my student dorm (10 Mbps half duplex) and that line is more than maxed out during peak hours (350+ users). We have been looking at dedicated hosting and the like, and that research (IIRC) revealed that we would need about 16k SEK to rent a server for a year. If the tooth-fairy does not deliver us a better, less expensive solution (100 Mbps full duplex is available in many private homes here, so I do have half a hope for her), then, basically, we're saving up for something like that.

And that is really the gist of things. As always, I will express my sincerest gratitude to all those who have thrown the fiddlers a coin or two, and I can only hope that the game continues to deliver that same experience that made you donate in the first place. Thank you!
"The psychological trials of dwellers in the last times will be equal to the physical trials of the martyrs. In order to face these trials we must be living in a different world."

-- Hieromonk Seraphim Rose
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Re: Your Tax Dollars at Work

Postby frontrox1 » Fri Jul 30, 2010 1:49 pm

I'll donate but you and loftar have to use it at a restaurant or fast food place, take pictures and post them in the op.
Or you can use it for server upgrades (Not as fun but its actually useful that way).
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Re: Your Tax Dollars at Work

Postby Gilbertus » Fri Jul 30, 2010 2:02 pm

Excellent post Jorb. Now we know how it looks and what perspective there are.

frontrox1 wrote:I'll donate but you and loftar have to use it at a restaurant or fast food place, take pictures and post them in the op.
Or you can use it for server upgrades (Not as fun but its actually useful that way).


Don't you worry that they could end overstuffed? :)
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Re: Your Tax Dollars at Work

Postby DatOneGuy » Fri Jul 30, 2010 2:29 pm

Gilbertus wrote:Excellent post Jorb. Now we know how it looks and what perspective there are.

frontrox1 wrote:I'll donate but you and loftar have to use it at a restaurant or fast food place, take pictures and post them in the op.
Or you can use it for server upgrades (Not as fun but its actually useful that way).


Don't you worry that they could end overstuffed? :)

I'm sure the restaurant has water and a place to plow. :)

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Interesting stuff reading the OP.
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Re: Your Tax Dollars at Work

Postby nirvanich » Fri Jul 30, 2010 3:30 pm

Try to make a counter with remaining money - it'll be clear for all about financial situation)))
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Re: Your Tax Dollars at Work

Postby mvgulik » Fri Jul 30, 2010 4:25 pm

nirvanich wrote:Try to make a counter with remaining money - it'll be clear for all about financial situation)))

Go dig a hole, jump in, and fill it up again.
Thank you.

@OP
Thanks for the informational update.
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Re: Your Tax Dollars at Work

Postby Sarge » Fri Jul 30, 2010 4:32 pm

mvgulik wrote:
nirvanich wrote:Try to make a counter with remaining money - it'll be clear for all about financial situation)))

Go dig a hole, jump in, and fill it up again.
Thank you.

@OP
Thanks for the informational update.


?

I would love to see a counter/progress bar as well, would be great if we could track progress and i believe it will motivate people to donate.
factnfiction101 wrote:^I agree with this guy.
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Re: Your Tax Dollars at Work

Postby sabinati » Fri Jul 30, 2010 5:33 pm

Sarge wrote:I would love to see a counter/progress bar as well, would be great if we could track progress and i believe it will motivate people to donate.


this
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Re: Your Tax Dollars at Work

Postby mvgulik » Fri Jul 30, 2010 5:37 pm

Sarge wrote:
mvgulik wrote:
nirvanich wrote:Try to make a counter with remaining money - it'll be clear for all about financial situation)))

Go dig a hole, jump in, and fill it up again.
Thank you.

@OP
Thanks for the informational update.


?

I would love to see a counter/progress bar as well, would be great if we could track progress and i believe it will motivate people to donate.


Did not say it was a bad idea.

Don't like messages like that, especially not as as first post. (They look completely selfish motivated to me.)
Yours has at least some general meaningful reasoning behind it.

I have no doubt Dev's know this principle to. But the payback versus the time that is needed to setup something like that, and use it ... might not be wort it.
Maybe with a bigger player-base it might. But than again it might not ... as its not the only thing that will influence the donation rate.

In my (dark) view a donation information system will probably work best if those that donated can see (and show) that they donated and how much. What the Dev do with the money is of a significant lesser effect.

Progress bar.
you mean kinda like Wikipedia uses when there is something that need to be payed. That could help, if there is something urgent to be payed.
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Re: Your Tax Dollars at Work

Postby exewu » Fri Jul 30, 2010 7:15 pm

Nice post, good to know that we are close to a solution (or at least improvement) on the lag.
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